Top 180 Miranda July Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us.”

— Miranda July

2. “Live the dream, Potato.”

— Miranda July

3. “What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real.”

— Miranda July

4. “Inelegantly, and without my consent, time passed.”

— Miranda July

5. “Things usually make sense in time, and even bad decisions have their own kind of correctness.”

— Miranda July

Featured in: Being Single Quotes

6. “Finally, in a low whisper, he said, ‘I think I might be a terrible person.’ For a split second I believed him – I thought he was about to confess a crime, maybe a murder. Then I realized that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before asking someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.”

— Miranda July

7. “We come from long lines of people destined never to meet.”

— Miranda July

8. “Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can’t see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.”

— Miranda July

9. “I realize that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before we ask someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.”

— Miranda July

10. “I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.”

— Miranda July

11. “If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have?”

— Miranda July

12. “I knew the beginning and the end – I just had to dream up a convincing middle.”

— Miranda July

13. “Don’t wait to be sure. Move, move, move.”

— Miranda July

14. “Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person’s face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you.”

— Miranda July

15. “My job is to have new ideas and take risks every day, so I’m always looking forward to the next thing being done or making the next thing that I haven’t yet gotten to. That’s sort of the constant in my life.”

— Miranda July

16. “We humans are here because nothing can be perfect. There always have to be some living things that are unsatisfied, itchy, trying too hard. If it was all just animals and rocks and lettuce, the gods wouldn’t feel like they had enough to do.”

— Miranda July

17. “In my paranoid world every storekeeper thinks I’m stealing, every man thinks I’m a prostitute or a lesbian, every woman thinks I’m a lesbian or arrogant, and every child and animal sees the real me and it is evil.”

— Miranda July

18. “I cried in English, I cried in french, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world.”

— Miranda July

19. “I gave you things I wasn’t sure I even had.”

— Miranda July

20. “People love to make life harder than it has to be.”

— Miranda July

21. “That is my problem with life, I rush through it, like I’m being chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking relaxing tea. When I drink relaxing tea I suck it down as if I’m in a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest.”

— Miranda July

22. “She never inquired, but she never recoiled, either. This is a quality that I look for in a person, not recoiling.”

— Miranda July

23. “That is my problem with life, I rush through it, like I’m being chased.”

— Miranda July

24. “But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us. She seemed to have room for me; she never turned away in the pauses that allow for turning away.”

— Miranda July

25. “You always feel like you are the only one in the world, like everyone else is crazy for each other, but it’s not true. Generally, people don’t like each other very much. And that goes for friends, too.”

— Miranda July

26. “We had fallen in love; that was still true. But given the right psychological conditions, a person could fall in love with anyone or anything. A wooden desk – always on all fours, always prone, always there for you. What was the lifespan of these improbable loves? An hour. A week. A few months at best. The end was a natural thing, like the seasons, like getting older, fruit turning. That was the saddest part – there was no one to blame and no way to reverse it.”

— Miranda July

27. “When you can see the beauty of a tree, then you will know what love is.”

— Miranda July

28. “Was everything redneck actually mystical?”

— Miranda July

29. “I steeled myself against laughter; I would rather die than laugh. I didn’t laugh, I did not laugh. But I died, I did die.”

— Miranda July

30. “This pain, this dying, this is just normal. This is how life is. In fact, I realize, there never was an earthquake. Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy for dreaming of something else.”

— Miranda July

31. “Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I’ve never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.”

— Miranda July

32. “I’m not a cinephile. My films don’t reference films. I’m more interested in rhythm and feeling.”

— Miranda July

33. “People tend to stick to their own size group because it’s easier on the neck. Unless they are romantically involved, in which case the size difference is sexy. It means: I am willing to go the distance for you.”

— Miranda July

34. “We had loved people we really shouldn’t have loved and then married other people in order to forget our impossible loves, or we had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond.”

— Miranda July

35. “I looked out the window for other passengers in love with their drivers, but we were well disguised, we pretended boredom and prayed for traffic.”

— Miranda July

36. “I don’t believe in psychology, which says everything you do is because of yourself. That is so untrue. We are social animals, and everything we do is because of other people, because we love them, or because we don’t.”

— Miranda July

37. “All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life – where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.”

— Miranda July

38. “The word God asks a question and then answers it before there is any chance to wonder.”

— Miranda July

39. “The job of the artist is to point at things.”

— Miranda July

40. “An erratum is a correction inserted into a book after publication. It’s a nice thing to collect because you can’t go after them, you just come upon them. In 25 years I’ve only found about 12.”

— Miranda July

41. “If there were a map of the solar system, but instead of stars it showed people and their degrees of separation, my star would be the one you had to travel the most light-years from to get to his. You would die getting to him.”

— Miranda July

42. “And why had Deb’s last boyfriend dumped her? I dumped him. Maybe you didn’t French-kiss him enough. I promise you that wasn’t it. Tell me how many times a day you kissed, and I’ll say if it was enough. Four hundred. Not enough.”

— Miranda July

43. “We don’t really believe in mowing the lawn; we do it only to avoid unnecessary engagement with the neighbors.”

— Miranda July

44. “It is terrible to have to ask for anything ever. We wish we were something that needed nothing, like paint. But even paint needs repainting.”

— Miranda July

45. “If you are sad, ask yourself why you are sad. Then pick up the phone and call someone and tell him the answer to the question. If you don’t know anyone, call the operator and tell him. Most people don’t know that the operator has to listen, it is a law. Also, the postman is not allowed to go inside your house, but you can talk to him on public property for up to four minutes or until he wants to go, whichever comes first.”

— Miranda July

46. “Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy to hope for something else.”

— Miranda July

47. “Nothing really mattered, and nothing could be lost.”

— Miranda July

48. “Everyone knows that if you paint a human being entirely with house paint he will live, as long as you don’t paint the bottom of his feet. It takes only a little thing like this to kill a person.”

— Miranda July

49. “Where do we come from? Do souls really exist? I can’t answer these questions, especially not at 6am.”

— Miranda July

50. “Oh, the future. I see.” A shadow fell over the doctor’s face. “You’re wondering if your son will get cancer? Or be hit by a car? Or be bipolar? Or have autism? Or drug problems? I don’t know, I’m not a psychic. Welcome to parenthood.”

— Miranda July